Observations placeholder
Dr W. Griesinger – Hearing voices near and far
Identifier
026164
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
As described in Illustrations Of The Influence Of The Mind Upon The Body In Health And Disease, Designed To Elucidate The Action Of The Imagination - Daniel Hack Tuke, M.D., M.R.C.P.,
PART III. THE WILL.
CHAPTER XIV. INFLUENCE OF THE WILL UPON SENSATION, THE VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY MUSCLES, AND THE ORGANIC FUNCTIONS.
SECTION I.— Influence of the Will upon Sensation.
"An intelligent patient (a medical student), who had throughout, hallucinations of the left side during a violent attack of insanity, had the impression that the voices did not come from the immediate neighborhood ; he had estimated them at a distance of several minutes.
He also made the remarkable declaration that he could, by his belly, exercise voluntarily an influence on the hallucinations of hearing. On closer investigation it was seen that he meant the respiratory function of the abdominal muscles, and that it was by means of the respiration that he exercised the influence.
On holding the breath, the voices were often changed — appeared to come from a point nearer or more distant.
We know that in expiration, the cerebro-spinal fluid rises from the spinal canal into the cavities of the brain and subarachnoid space (owing to the filling of the numerous venous plexuses of the canal of the spinal marrow), and that it again subsides during inspiration"
(Mental Pathology and Therapeutics. By W. Griesinger, M.D. Translated for the New Sydenham Society by Drs. Robertson and Rutherford. 1867, p. 90).